This film is probably Hal Hartley's best one. The subject, of a unusual originality, is treated (that's usual with Hal Hartley) with great humor. This characteristic isn't at all the only quality of this film: the fussy frame composition (everything is parallel, until the smallest details), shooting angles, lighting, giving a more supernatural dimension to these blurred images (Jesus' coming down couldn't be filmed in a conventional way), the falsely "poser" acting, are qualities that make this Bible re-reading, carried out in the form of an apocalyptic delirium, essential.
Review of The Book of Life
The Book of Life
(1998)
Jesus comes down on earth to renegotiate the Apocalypse terms... A masterpiece!
28 January 2000